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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Rabbi Uzi Meshulam, the rabbi that fought to reveal the alleged
kidnapping Jewish Yemenite children in Israel's early years, died this Friday
at age 60.

Meshulam made the headlines in 1994 when he and his
followers barricaded themselves in his home in the city of Yehud with an
arsenal of weapons. Meshulam threatened bloodshed. Police broke into the house
and overcame Meshulam's followers at the moment he left them to talk with the
police commissioner. For his role in the affair, Meshulam served six years in
prison.

A commission of inquiry established following his struggle
didn't find evidence of the kidnapping of Yemenite babies by the establishment.

Meshulam, who was born in 1953, was a teacher in a religious
Jewish school. During Passover of 1994, he began distributing pamphlets
regarding the kidnapping of Yemenite Jewish children which he equated to the
acts of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Thousands of children of Yemenite
immigrants to Israel, he claimed, were sold to the United States to be used in
experiments like those that were conducted by Dr. Joseph Mengele in Auschwitz.
Meshulam demanded the establishment of a national commission of inquiry.

At the end of March 1994, Meshulam was involved in an
argument with the driver of a cement mixer whose right of way was blocked by a
tanker that stood beside Meshulam's house. Meshulam rejected the driver's
request that he move the tanker and the driver called the police. In response,
Meshulam summoned his followers and they blocked the road with their cars.

The
following day, dozens of Meshulam's followers assembled next to his house in
Yehud and clashed with the police.

With the involvement of several Knesset members, an
agreement was concluded with Meshulam, in which he took it upon himself to
ensure that his men would not act violently. In return, Meshulam was promised
that the police would release some of his followers who had been arrested and
that the investigation would be delayed until after Passover.

Additionally, he
was promised that the Knesset would act to bring about the creation of a
national committee of inquiry regarding the disappearance of children among
Israel's community of Yemenite immigrants.

The police did in fact free Meshulam's arrested followers
and delayed the opening of an investigation. However, when after Passover he
was requested to report to the police for questioning, Meshulam refused.

The barricading of Meshulam's house continued and police
forces remained close by. Additional attempts made by various figures to
persuade Meshulam to disperse his men were in vain.

Comments made by Meshulam during phone conversations he
conducted from his home raised fears that he intended to escalate the
confrontations with the police. Fearing bloodshed, the police acted with
restraint. At the end of April, when the barricaded group came out of the house
to defiantly march in the street armed and led by Meshulam, it did not
intervene.

After seven weeks since Meshulam and his men barricaded
themselves in his house, on May 10, Meshulam was persuaded to meet with then
Police Commissioner Assaf Hefetz.

Meshulam arrived at the meeting in disguise
and strapped with two pistols. Hefetz asked Meshulam to instruct his followers
to lay down their weapons and to turn themselves in to the police. When
Meshulam rejected this demand and threatened bloodshed, he was arrested.

An hour after Meshulam's arrest, shots were fired from the
roof of his house toward a police helicopter and toward police forces
surrounding the house. The police returned fire and hit one off the men
barricaded in the home, Shlomo Assulin, killing him. Later, the police burst
into the house and arrested Meshulam's followers.

Meshulam was sentenced to eight years in prison, but his
sentence was reduced and in the end he only served five years in prison, after
President Ezer Weizman also further reduced his sentence. Meshulam's followers
came back into the headlines later on when they shot a Prison Service employee.

Meshulam's goal eventually achieved, when in 1995 a
committee was established to examine the case of the disappearance of Yemenite
children who immigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1954. The committee was
first led by Supreme Court Judge Emeritus Yehuda Cohen, who was subsequently
replaced by his colleague Jacob Kedmi. This was the third commission that
investigated this issue.